The Mongoliad: Book Two

1

Rome was not the first city Ferenc had ever seen. As a child, he had lived in Buda, where the clustered buildings were strewn like squat boulders along the banks of the slow-moving Danube. His memories, though, were but vague shapes in a fog compared to the reality laid out before his eyes.

Rome lay below them, wrapping itself around the River Tiber like a jealous lover. The light was strange here too. It was brighter and brisker than his memories of Buda, as if the sky over the city had cracked open and scattered celestial sparks upon the peaked rooftops, creating a dazzling spray of illumination.

Ferenc glanced at the priest slumped on the horse next to him. He was draped over his horse’s neck, his knuckles intertwined in the animal’s mane so tightly they were white. The light from the city was reflected in his eyes, making him look almost blind. A ropy strand of spit quivered in his tangled beard.

His fever was back. The disease had gone into hiding deep within the priest a week ago, and then he had insisted they ride farther and harder each day. Ferenc had tried to hold him back, knowing this relief from the burning infection was temporary. He had been right: this morning, it had returned. The skin around the wound on the man’s hip was still angry and red, even though the gash was closing. If it closed all the way, it would seal the fever inside, and he would never heal.

With a groan that made Ferenc shudder, the priest pushed himself upright. His right foot slipped from the stirrup. He grabbed at the horse’s mane to keep from falling, and the animal tossed its neck back, as if protesting his clumsiness. Father Rodrigo shook his head, and the spit flew from his beard. “Rome,” he croaked. “We made it.”

When he looked at Ferenc, his eyes were still filled with the wild, reflected light from the city below. The young hunter made the sign of the cross on his chest, as the priest had taught him, and whispered the holy words that would protect him from possession. His mother had taught him other charms against evil spirits-the warding eye, the sign of the forest-but he didn’t want to enrage the priest. He didn’t want the madness in the priest to know he was afraid.

Ferenc had come to realize the strength of the priest’s magic. Father Rodrigo had one sign he used for everything. He didn’t have to remember the prayers to the wind or the rain or the spirits living in the forests. He didn’t have to know the hymns to sing before and after a hunt. He didn’t have to memorize the glyphs and sigils used by mothers to protect their houses and children. The priest had one sign only-such a simple gesture, so easily taught to children, so easily remembered-and one god to call upon. Followers of such magic asked only for strength and guidance; why they needed either was left unspoken. God knows, the priest had assured Ferenc, God knows everything in your soul.

“Yes,” the priest said, crossing himself as Ferenc did. “Praise His mercy.” He returned his attention to the city. “He has carried us this far, and He will only need to sustain us a short while longer.”

The last few days had been filled with the same sort of fear that had chased them away from Mohi. An army lay around the hills of Rome, a discordant mass of unorganized men that had none of the terrifying precision of the Mongols but had been foreign occupiers nonetheless. The two companions had fallen into old routines-traveling by night, moving slowly across unmarked terrain, avoiding all contact-and only this morning had they sensed they were through the cordon of soldiers.

The priest swayed, and Ferenc again feared Father Rodrigo would fall. But he caught himself-somehow-with a hand across the neck of his horse and his head thrown back in a wild, wordless plea to Heaven.

Father Rodrigo’s horse, used to hours and days of the priest as near deadweight, seemed spooked at his unexpected shifting in the saddle and sidestepped irritably. If his horse grew any more agitated, Father Rodrigo would surely be thrown. The priest claimed his god watched over fools and idiots, but he’d also said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Ferenc had seen enough men thrown from their horses on the plain near Mohi to know what would happen. He nudged his mount toward the priest’s and leaned over, patting the horse’s flank. Sweaty-and now twitchy. Which made his own exhausted mount suddenly twitchy too. They’d been pushing the horses too hard, and the animals were becoming choleric. It wouldn’t take much for both of them to bolt.

Me too, Ferenc thought. He settled his weight in his saddle, quieting his own horse with a firm hand on the shoulder and soft words. They had gotten these horses just inland from Venice, in the flat plains of the western Veneto; they were spindly-legged nags, not at all suitable for climbing mountains. They didn’t understand Ferenc’s Magyar, but they understood his voice. They knew his tone. As he spoke to them, they calmed.

Father Rodrigo hadn’t noticed the moment of unrest. The city held him enraptured. “There,” he said, pointing. “Santa Maria Maggiore. That tall spire there. That is where I received my confirmation.” He expelled a sharp laugh. “Twenty years now, I’ve been gone for twenty years.” He moved his hand slightly, referencing another landmark that Ferenc could not separate out from the forest of towers and domes. “Over there is the Basilica of St. Peter’s. Across the river, Ferenc. Do you see the house of holy light?”

But the light is shining on all of them, Ferenc thought, although he kept his tongue still. The priest seemed to be shaking off some of the malaise that had bound his bones. For a while now, perhaps as long as it would take them to descend this hill and join the flow of travelers entering the city, Father Rodrigo might remain lucid. Perhaps even long enough for them to reach the river. Perhaps.

“Come,” the priest said, rapping his heels against his horse. “We have a little farther to travel.” The horse snorted and picked its way downslope, toward the broad, paved track of the road.

Ferenc remained for a moment, idly rubbing the itching skin on the front of his left shoulder. Most of their nicks and cuts from last spring had healed, nothing more than thin, pink lines of new skin on their sun-darkened faces and arms. The most grievous of his wounds had been an arrow to the shoulder, and it was the last to heal. Fortunately, the enemy archer had been very strong and Ferenc’s gambeson had not been very thick. The arrowhead had gone through, missing the bone; it had been simple to break the shaft and draw the two pieces out. Simple, yes, but taking the arrow out had hurt worse than getting shot. At least the wound had been clean-easily dressed and cared for.

He’d also cleaned and bound Father Rodrigo’s wounds, and cleaned and rebound them often during their journey from the death fields at Mohi. But the Father’s infection ran too deep for Ferenc’s skill. They needed to reach the sanctuary of which Father Rodrigo spoke so longingly. Here they would find more priests and also, Ferenc assumed, healers-men who could save Father Rodrigo both from his infection and his madness. Ferenc did not quite understand what was in this great basilica of Father Rodrigo’s-this house of holy light-but he imagined it as a gleaming fortress of strength, beauty, and an omnipotent magic born of pure faith.

Ferenc nudged his horse forward, following Father Rodrigo’s. As they wound their way toward the bottom of the narrow hill, the sounds of civilization rose up to meet his ears: voices calling out, metal ringing against metal, the groan and creak of an old wagon as it rumbled down the dusty track, and in the distance, the steadily growing buzz of the city. They had avoided settled areas for so long that all these noises, the cacophony of city life, created an undifferentiated tumult in Ferenc’s ears. It reminded him not of his childhood memories of Buda but of the sound that had swept across the fields of Mohi shortly before dawn on that ghastly spring morning months ago. That crackling noise of men’s fear. The sound of thousands of men babbling to themselves as they waited for their turn to die.

Ferenc hunched his shoulders, ignoring the twinge below his clavicle, trying instinctively to protect his head, to shelter his ears from possible screams and wails-sounds he was more likely to hear in his mind.

This morning, on the open road to Rome, he had heard only the sounds of travelers: children laughing or singing tunelessly, oxen lowing as they pulled carts toward the city, men calling hesitant greetings to one another. While these travelers were aware of the presence of a nearby army, they did not have the same fear. No one fretted whether or not they were going to be the first to die. Of all the people on the roads to Rome, only Ferenc-and Father Rodrigo too, judging by the tension in his jaw and the faraway look in his eye-were haunted by the distant disaster that had befallen Christendom on the banks of the Sajo River.

The harbingers of the Apocalypse-horse riders from the East-had come to Christendom. Those who survived the horrifying battle at Mohi-who were to bear witness to the rest of the West-were forever marked.

Ferenc’s resolve failed when they reached the market. He had girded himself for the sensory onslaught, but the noise still buffeted him like the winter wind screaming through the rough passes in the Carpathians. He was surrounded by the clucking cries of distraught poultry, the bleating of terrified pigs, the cacophony of vendors shouting and arguing with customers over the prices of their wares, the whistling din of pipes as musicians tried to play loud enough for street performers to dance. And always the smell of unwashed bodies, rotten fruit, pig shit, cow shit. The turgid atmosphere of too many people living in too small a space.

It was all Ferenc could do to keep his terror in check. He wanted to jerk at his horse’s reins until the animal reared back, then plow through the crowds and flee Rome entirely. The dumb beast already sensed his fear and didn’t know what to do except be frightened as well. Run, Ferenc thought, we’re close enough. He eyed the priest. Someone would find him and take him across the river. Someone else. It didn’t have to be him.

Whatever lucidity Father Rodrigo had up on the hill was gone now. The priest slumped forward again on the neck of his horse. His eyes were unfocused, and while his lips were moving, what came out of his mouth was nothing but nonsensical syllables. Ferenc had heard enough Latin over the last months-both feverish and liturgical-to learn the shape of the words; what was spilling from Father Rodrigo’s mouth were only fragments, gutturals, fluttering sibilants-as if his tongue were a dragonfly’s wing and couldn’t slow itself enough to alight on a full word.

The hunter nudged his horse even closer to the priest’s and leaned over to tug at the knotted rope around Father Rodrigo’s waist. Two sharp tugs, enough to get his attention. Father Rodrigo slowly and laboriously hauled his head around as if it were a stone block. He stared at his shorter companion. His eyes were again filled with fever light.

He’s blind, Ferenc realized. All he can see is the past. “Holy man,” he said, and when Father Rodrigo didn’t react, he said it again, louder. “Can you help me, holy man?”

After the Mongol army had swept across the plains at Mohi, those who hadn’t been killed outright lay broken on the battlefield, waiting for the scavengers to come and finish them off. It was the rain that had brought Ferenc back, the cold and bitter taste of the water dripping down his face and into his mouth. He lay curled in a heap of dead men, directly under the brute who had tried to crush his skull with a club. The flies were undeterred by the rain, crawling across the Mongol’s bloodstained face and over his one remaining eyeball. Ferenc’s knife stuck out of the man’s other socket. Ferenc couldn’t reach it, nor could he pull himself free from the pile of dead men. He could only lie there, watching the rain sluice off the corpses in streams of pink and red, watching flies crawl in and out of his assailant’s gaping mouth.

And then the priest had stumbled past, dirty and bloody. Ferenc had filled his chest as best he could under the crush of bodies and called out. Holy man, he had cried. Can you help me, holy man? In that moment their fates became bound.

His mother had taught him about the endless cycle of the seasons. Every year we start again, she had told him. Before he was old enough to hunt, she would lead him by his small pink hand into the garden as the frost fled and the ground became soft. There, she taught him how to dig up what was dead. This is what was, she had said, shoving the twisted roots into his hand; this is what will be, as she planted the new crop and had him pat down the soft soil. When he was older, he had asked her why she repeated the same phrase every year. Because that is how we remember, she had told him. That is how we bind ourselves to the world.

Ferenc repeated his question one last time. He needed Father Rodrigo to remember that moment on the field of Mohi. It was how they were bound together.

Father Rodrigo blinked, and his mouth slowed, articulating more clearly the words in his throat. “In…intende in adjutorium meaum,” he whispered. “Deus salutis meae…” He lifted his head and appeared to realize where they were. His fingers moving awkwardly, he fumbled with the drawstrings of the satchel tied to his waist. When he got it open, he shoved his hand inside and rooted around for a long time until he found what he sought. He thrust his hand toward Ferenc, nearly falling off his horse in the process; clutched between two fingers was the dull metal shape of a flat-topped ring. “Educe me…” He shook his head and tried again, this time in Ferenc’s native tongue. “Take me to the palace,” he said.

Ferenc leaned toward him, reaching for the ring. His fingers brushed the cool metal.

“Caput orbis terrarum-” A fresh bout of shivering overtook the priest, and he let go of the seal so that he could grab the pommel of his saddle. “Go to where St. Peter rests,” Father Rodrigo urged when he could speak again. “Show them. They will know what to do…”

Ferenc examined the ring in his hands. He had seen it before. The priest had taken it out of his satchel occasionally and peered at it, but he had never explained its significance. The top was flat, inlaid with a cross, and raised letters ran along the outer edge. They meant nothing to Ferenc-other than the now familiar shape of the cross-but Father Rodrigo thought someone at the cathedral would know. Ferenc glanced around the bustling marketplace. Soldiers. The city’s militia. Perhaps the soldiers would know.

Clutching both the ring and the reins of Father Rodrigo’s horse, Ferenc began to ride slowly through the square. He owed the priest his life, and his debt would only be repaid when they reached their destination. The chaos of the market frightened him, and he’d faltered. He had turned to the priest for aid, and even in his fevered state, the priest had responded with a message, a sign. This was how his God worked, after all. When you lose your way, you prayed to Him for guidance and He would send you aid. He would tell you what to do and where to go.

Ferenc made the magic sign-forehead, sternum, left shoulder, right shoulder-and behind him, swaying drunkenly on his horse, Father Rodrigo did the same.

They were clearly foreigners, and not just because they were stones in the natural flow of the market. It was closing in on midday. The blockade surrounding the city had reduced most of the itinerant vendors to barely a trickle, and those farmers who were able to set up their stalls had already come and gone, their wagons picked clean by the early morning residents. The pair stood out, not by virtue of their ragged appearances or because they were on horseback but because they didn’t have a clear destination in mind. They wandered aimlessly, moving at odds with the rest of the people in the square. One of them, the elder, appeared to be drunk. The other was not a local youth. Nor was he a simple farmer, though he had that wide-eyed, skittish, wondering look Ocyrhoe had seen on many a lad the first time they came to Rome. She sensed he was only a few years into manhood, but his beard and hair were thick and long, his face dark and lined from exposure.

She had been watching them since they came in through the Porta Tiburtina. The Via Tiburtina wasn’t a major thoroughfare like Via Appia, but it was the only open road into Rome for those coming from the east.

Each morning, she climbed one of the churches on one of the seven hills of Rome and took stock of the city. There was too much of it for one person to cover; she couldn’t hope to watch over it all, and so each morning she had to make a choice. Which gate? Which district? Which road? Where would she go? This morning, what little wind there was at dawn had been from the east, and so she had come to the market square next to the Porta Tiburtina to watch and to wait.

She was the only one left. She had to be careful.

Rome was caught in the throes of two crises. There were those who were still mourning the loss of the Bishop of Rome; others stood in the shadow of the walls and looked for signs that Frederick, the Holy Roman Emperor, was losing his taste for the blockade. Ocyrhoe wasn’t privy to most of the political and religious machinations, nor did she profess to understand all of them, but she understood the rhythm and the pulse of the people, and in it she sensed a great deal of unease and danger.

And this had been true even before her kin-sisters had begun to disappear.

Two weeks ago, she had spotted the white pigeon on the statue of Minerva. When it had still been there the next morning, she had dared to climb up and retrieve it. The message on its leg had been written in the secret language, and without her sisters to help her, Ocyrhoe had spent most of the day deciphering it. The message was nothing more than a simple question, and she knew instinctively that it was meant for her: Where are my eyes in Rome?

The others were gone, taken-or driven off-by the Bear’s men, or they had fled before the Emperor’s armies had set up their camps outside the city. She was the only one left-too small to be noticed, too young to flee the city that had reared her-and so the task fell to her: to watch, to wait, to learn what was happening. And when the time came-when another bird appeared on Minerva’s shoulder, as she knew in time it would-Ocyrhoe would be ready to report on everything she knew, on everything she had seen.

Today had brought these two: the drunken priest and the wild man-child.

The younger one wasn’t very tall or broad, but he was more square than round in the chest. His shaggy hair had been bleached blond by the sun a long time ago, and what was left of his natural brown persisted as shadows and stripes through his beard. A rustic, homemade bow and quiver were slung across the withers of his horse. A small knife was thrust through his belt. The older man was trying to be a nondescript traveler, but Ocyrhoe sensed he was a priest. His hooded robe-stained and worn from travel-was a simple garment and gave no hint as to what sort of priest he might be. But the thin cord wrapped around his waist-from which a plain satchel was hung-was a rosary. He had cut off most of the long tail, but the short stem still had a few knots.

They were strangers, and she only had to watch them clumsily navigate the flow of people, carts, and draft animals through the market to know that, but there was something else about them that drew her attention. She had been training with Varinia-before her kin-sisters started to vanish-and the older girl had marveled at Ocyrhoe’s instincts. You read patterns too readily for an orphan, she had told Ocyrhoe. Ocyrhoe hadn’t understood what she meant and only shrugged. There was nothing that mysterious about her ability; she kept her eyes open, watching, and just knew when something wasn’t right.

She tagged along after the pair, staying two horse-lengths back in the crowd. She knew the local cutpurses well enough to avoid their closeness, and little else distracted her focused attention.

The priest swayed on his horse, dependent on his companion’s guidance. His head rolled loosely on his shoulders, and his pale, greasy hair stuck damp and matted to his forehead. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes couldn’t stay still. As Ocyrhoe slipped closer, she revised her assessment of the man’s condition. He wasn’t drunk; he was sick.

She kept at arm’s length to one side of the young man’s mount, not to be kicked, as they navigated the tangle of stalls and carts. The youth had a purpose but didn’t know his destination. Ocyrhoe read the frustration on his face as he pulled his elder into an impassable clump of vegetable sellers. She feigned interest in some apples as the youth confusedly turned the horses around-eliciting shouts of derision and annoyance from the surrounding merchants-and pushed back toward the center of the square.

The gimlet-eyed merchant whose apples she was appraising regarded her with suspicion; she raised her left fist and shook it as if clenching a coin tightly between her fingers. The man crossed his arms over an ample belly and continued to stare, wordlessly calling her bluff. She actually did have a few coins in a tiny leather pouch that hung from a strap around her neck, but she wasn’t about to waste one here.

As the two horses passed behind her, she made a display of mock outrage that this peasant would think she’d deign to steal from him.

“Run along, rat.” He laughed at her.

She did, falling in behind the pair, ducking her head slightly to use the horses themselves as cover from the riders. As the youth nudged his horse, directing it to their left, the priest’s horse-caught off guard by the sudden change in direction-stopped and pawed the ground. Ocyrhoe came to an abrupt halt as well, close enough to touch the priest’s horse. The urge to reach out and put her hand on the animal’s flank was strong, and she wrestled with the desire. As the priest’s horse tossed its head and stepped after the young foreigner’s horse, she let out the breath she had been holding. She stood still and let them get some distance.

Too close. Before she could castigate herself further, the priest twisted around and looked straight back at her, as if he knew she was there. As if he knew what she had almost done.

She panicked and did exactly what she shouldn’t have: stood rooted to the spot by the intensity of his gaze. There was a light in his eyes, a glitter of some fire beyond the burning distress of fever. She shivered despite the hot sun beating down heavily on the square. Her skin turned cold, gooseflesh racing up her arms and chest. A procession of images flickered in her head like bits of a half-remembered dream. The two men had traveled a great distance, she knew this instinctively: through a dense forest, across the stark terrain of a high mountain pass, over a trampled and bloody field.

When she blinked, it was as if a cloud flew in front of the sun, and when it was gone, so was the priest’s attention.

She swallowed thickly, the back of her tongue tingling. As she tried to make sense of the flash of insight, she noticed a squad of the local militia, rough stock sporting the white and purple of the Bear. Their path was going to intersect that of the riders. The leader was a thick-necked man with a round face and tiny eyes-he reminded Ocyrhoe of a hungry pig-and the confusion sown by the pair of riders had caught his attention.

The squad leader raised his hand, open palm directed at the horsemen, and his men-at-arms slapped their bracers against their leather jerkins. The sound broke the cacophony of the market, as the market-goers instinctively pulled back. A bubble opened up around the soldiers and the foreign horsemen, and a hush fell over the square.

“What is your business in Rome?” the squad leader asked, his eyes flicking back and forth between the two newcomers. He stood in front of the youth’s horse, feet planted apart, looking like a dun-colored boulder.

The young man said something in a foreign tongue, pointing at the priest, who was swaying in his saddle, his focus elsewhere. Ocyrhoe stepped behind a vendor’s cart, out of the priest’s line of sight. She didn’t think he was looking for her, but she was still spooked by that prior moment of clairvoyant connection. She wanted to slip away into the crowd and vanish. But she stayed, dropping to a squat so that she could still see what was going on from beneath the cart.

When the squad leader repeated his question, his men punctuated it by loosening their swords in their scabbards. The rattle of metal made the foreigner talk more rapidly, his strange words tripping over one another like the chorus of a child’s chant. Ocyrhoe picked out the one familiar word before the soldiers, but finally it dawned on them too: “Peter,” he was saying. “St. Peter.”

“St. Peter. The basilica? Do you wish to see a priest?” the squad leader asked. “There are many priests-many churches-in Rome.”

Ocyrhoe crept forward to get a better angle. She couldn’t see the young foreigner’s face-but she could see the reaction of the soldiers as the boy held something up. In unison, their eyes widened and their brows furrowed.

“St. Peter,” he repeated and pointed at the priest on the other horse. Ocyrhoe saw he was holding a ring. He hadn’t understood the squad leader’s words, but the gist of the man’s question had been plain. Likewise, the visual aid of the ring and the swaying priest were enough to make his response clear.

The priest gasped like a fish, finding a moment of lucidity, but his voice was so ragged and strained that Ocyrhoe could barely hear it. “The Pope,” the priest rasped. “I have urgent news for His Eminence.”

“What news?” the squad leader demanded.

The priest shook his head, lapsing into the babbling cant of his scripture. “Quod perierat requiram,” he sighed. “Et…et quod abjectum erat reducam, et quod confractum fuerat alligabo, et quod infirmum fuerat consolidabo, et quod pingue et forte custodiam…”

The squad leader crossed himself, then stepped closer to them, gesturing for the ring. The young stranger leaned back in his saddle, the metal ring clutched desperately in his hand. The squad leader grimaced as he closed his own hand and raised his fist toward his men, who quickly responded with another noisy rattle of their swords. Instantly terrified, the youth tossed the ring to the leader.

The squad leader caught the ring and brought it close to his face so he could squint at it. Without turning his head, he called to his men, and one of the taller ones leaped forward. A hushed conversation followed. Ocyrhoe strained to catch their words, then took a few steps forward, just in time to see the leader drop the ring into the open hand of the tall soldier, who saluted, spun around, and trotted off through the crowd.

The foreigner had spotted the transfer too, and he cried out in protest. The priest was so startled by the sound he fell off his horse and landed with a thump on the stone paving and dirt. As the crowd surged forward, the youth pulled hard on the reins of his own horse and leaned forward, signaling-accidentally? wondered Ocyrhoe-the animal to rear up and paw at the air. One hoof struck the squad leader with a glancing blow to the head. The soldier flinched and ducked, crying out in pain, and behind him, his men drew their swords.

For Ocyrhoe, the world unraveled in that instant. The crowd became an undulating mass of bodies: some resisting being shoved forward, faces contorted with fear at the sight of weapons and flailing hooves; others pulling back, arms raised to protect their heads.

The priest lay sprawled on his back in a cloud of dust-slack-jawed, eyes flicking left and right, hands twitching-caught in the grip of fever-born phantoms. The squad leader gawped, the open cavern of his mouth making him seem like a dull-witted buffoon; his men flanked him, staunch-shouldered, arms flexed for a fight, their expressions a mix of ferocity and fear.

The foreign youth’s horse pulled back its lips and flared its nostrils; the wild boy himself was the only one who appeared calm in the sudden fracas. It was now clear to Ocyrhoe that he had perfect command of his mount and had deliberately set off this chaos. She made her decision in that instant.

With an ease that belied the confusion and tumult of the marketplace around her, she fixed her eye on a spot on the young man’s horse. As she moved, the noise of the crowd faded to a distant growl, like thunder dying across the hills. Her feet hardly touched the stones as she sprang up and dashed forward, and she barely registered the presence of the semiprone merchant whom she used as a vault to achieve a place on the foreigner’s horse-right behind him, so close she pressed against his back.

Her arm, around his shoulder. He tensed.

Her mouth, next to his ear. “Ride,” she whispered, then pointed, her finger tracking the tall soldier with the ring as he neared the edge of the square.

“Peter,” she said, knowing it was the only word he would understand. He did.

She felt his legs clamp around his horse. The animal snorted and charged, diving toward the shining blades of the approaching soldiers. Her heart leaped into her throat, her skin flushed and heated at the thought that she had made a terrible mistake. But the foreigner had given his horse the freedom to run, and run it did, scattering soldiers and commoners alike.

Ocyrhoe held tight as the market became a blur. The soldier with the metal ring had disappeared around a corner; he did not know they were chasing him, and even if he did, he couldn’t outrun this horse. She had never ridden a horse before, and the powerful thump and heave of the animal beneath her was both terrifying and exhilarating.